On a smaller scale the Plasco building collapse in Iran reflects the tragedy of 9/11. A tall building collapsed due to fire, killing a large number of firefighters who were heroically trying to rescue people. The physical collapse of the building also reflected many aspects of the collapses both of the World Trade Center towers, and of Building 7. In particular we see the progressive collapse of floors stripping away the support from the walls which then collapse. This progressive collapse can be seen as a series of expulsions of smoke, fire and debris from the windows.

These and other similarities have placed the 9/11 Truth movement in a difficult position. They have long claimed that there are several visible indications of controlled demolition in the way the collapses of WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7 looked. Now those same indications have been duplicated in another building they are forced to either admit that those indications were just part of a regular collapse due to fire, or they have to double down and claim that this building also was demolished by explosives in some strange and implausible conspiracy.

Based on preliminary analysis of many videos of the collapse, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth)—a nonprofit that represents more than 2,750 architects and engineers who are calling for a new investigation of the 2001 World Trade Center disaster—strongly urges President Rouhani, Iranian authorities, and the people of Iran to thoroughly investigate the possible use of explosives in the Plasco Building’s shocking demise, and to act swiftly and decisively to preserve the physical evidence.

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And they list the indicators that are part of the canon of evidence for their 9/11 theory that they think they also see in the Plasco collapse:

Here, six separate videos we have compiled show what appear to be—and in some cases sound like—explosions emanating from the tower in sequential patterns as it began to crumble. The building’s tumultuous fall is then accompanied by thick, energetic, rapidly forming plumes that are reminiscent of what we see in controlled demolitions. Further, the BBC reported that the fires were nearly extinguished—and that emergency personnel and occupants had begun reentering the building—when the collapse unexpectedly occurred. Indeed, videos display very few flames and a thick black smoke—signs of a low temperature, oxygen-starved fire. Moreover, the inferno was limited to the upper floors, yet the entire 17 stories came down in just a few seconds

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This is, of course, nonsense. The building very clear collapsed due to a fire - the simplest refutation being that the floors that collapsed were the floors that were on fire, and no sounds of explosive demolition were heard. You can see the building progressively collapse. No explosives were needed. It's clear to just about everyone that this was just a fire.

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Mahmoud Alawi, Minister of Information visited the Plasco accident site and said so far there is no information or indication of sabotage and destruction.

He said studies show that this incident is not terrorist suspect in any way

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But for now AE911 is forced to make these increasingly ridiculous claims. While they say in their press release they are not jumping to conclusions, they should be fully aware that when it becomes clear to their supporters that the cause of the Plasco collapse was actually just fire, then significant parts of their claims of evidence for a 9/11 conspiracy will vanish in a puff of smoke.

Let us look more closely at the points AE911 raise (most of which are factually correct), and why they are compelled to see them as suspicious.

AE911: "The inferno was limited to the upper floors, yet the entire 17 stories came down in just a few seconds"

Almost the entire AE911 case (and the Truther narrative in general) is built on an argument from incredulity. The collapse of the WTC towers looked weird. It seemed that it came down "too fast", "through the path of least resistance", and the official explanation "violated Newton's laws of motion". AE911 has gone to great lengths to press their belief that a building cannot collapse from the top down. And yet here we have an example of exactly that. Besides the collapse being due to fire, it was also due to fire at the top of a building and caused the entire building to rapidly collapse.

AE911: "the fires were nearly extinguished"

Partially true, and yet irrelevant. Just like in all three WTC buildings there were still substantial fires burning, and the fire here (and in WTC7) had been burning for hours, moving through the building, damaging and weakening connections and structural members as it went. In addition some damage can actually occur as the steel cools and contracts.

AE911: "The building’s tumultuous fall is then accompanied by thick, energetic, rapidly forming plumes that are reminiscent of what we see in controlled demolitions."

By this they mean the cloud of smoke and dust that is kicked up when the building collapse. AE911 used to refer to this as a "pyroclastic flow" and claimed that it was somehow evidence of demolition because they saw it in building that were demolished. But really it's just what happens when a building collapses. There's a lot of dust, and the falling building displaces a lot of air, creating swirling clouds.

AE911: "videos we have compiled show what appear to be—and in some cases sound like—explosions emanating from the tower in sequential patterns as it began to crumble."

In the 9/11 controlled demolition mythology, a core piece of "evidence" has been "squibs" - small ejections of debris that occurred several floors below the collapse of the exterior. The cause of these has long been obvious - the interior collapse of floors led to rapid compression of the air, and it blew stuff out of windows. That this is happening is readily apparent in the Plasco building, especially in video that AE911 chose to illustrate it.

Again, these expulsions of debris are exactly what you would expect from a progressive top-down floor collapse inside the building. In this regard the Plasco collapse more closely resembles WTC1/2 than WTC7. WTC 1 & 2 were top down collapses, so you saw these exact same expulsions. WTC7 was a bottom up collapse, so the expulsions were largely confined to lower floors, not easily visible on the video.

Here's another compilation of footage of the fire and collapse, some of which haven't been posted here before.

The two bits that stand out for me are at 7:00, where the expelled dust plumes can be seen rapidly running down the side of the building, starting from just below the visible fire to nearly ground level just before the walls start to fall - very indicative of progressive failure of the internal floors, and at 8:39 where you can see the external wall fails at a single point, just below the fire fighters platform in the shot, and propagates from there across the rest of the structure. Not something you see in footage of controlled demolitions / implosions.

Also, every time I see the collapse I can't help but wonder how the two fire fighters on that platform escaped unharmed. The gods were smiling on them that day.

Iranian officials say there were 20-30 firefighters on the THIRD floor when it collapsed. If fire was limited to upper floors as AE911T claims, then why were all the FFs on the 3rd floor?
Obvious answer would be they are wrong and that the fires had to be fought, in the interior, from lower floors involved first.

Whitebeard, there were two high buckets with a couple FFs each. One seemed to completely escape, the other swings back and forth, the truck must have been hit by debris. Very lucky that both did not collapse

If fire was limited to upper floors as AE911T claims, then why were all the FFs on the 3rd floor?

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I think it's general practice for a high-rise fire, is to station a command area or staging area, on the accessible few floors below the fire. They don't expect a collapse, and a multi-story fire usually travels upward.
Example: The "First Interstate" fire in Los Angeles,,,,,fire was on the 12th floor, and local command was staged on the 10th floor.

Another piece of AE911 "evidence" duplicated here is the occasional "flash" caused by falling glass plates catching the sun for an instant.

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A high-rise fire includes the fact that facade glass is falling constantly and unpredictably, so much so, that firefighters need to find an 'safe route' just to enter the building, due to the danger of falling glass on the fire-side of the building.

Iranian officials say there were 20-30 firefighters on the THIRD floor when it collapsed. If fire was limited to upper floors as AE911T claims, then why were all the FFs on the 3rd floor?
Obvious answer would be they are wrong and that the fires had to be fought, in the interior, from lower floors involved first.

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According to local media, there were some uncooperative business owners who re-entered the evacuated building some time after the fire started to collect their valuables. The fire fighters were probably inspecting the lower floors to make sure no one was present at the time of the collapse.

,,,,fire was on the 12th floor, and local command was staged on the 10th floor.

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Agreed..Given that it is "local command" of the active combat front line. The overall management, logistic and welfare support co-ordination would be off site. An issue of emergency management protocol which gets overlooked in discussions of the WTC7 evacuations of the OEM. The OEM was not the tactical combat front line command. I'm judging from the perspective of AU state and federal protocols but I don't see US as being different - nor Iranian.

I think it's general practice for a high-rise fire, is to station a command area or staging area, on the accessible few floors below the fire. They don't expect a collapse, and a multi-story fire usually travels upward.
Example: The "First Interstate" fire in Los Angeles,,,,,fire was on the 12th floor, and local command was staged on the 10th floor.

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Agreed, however AE911T states the fire was only on upper floors.
Would fires on say the 12th and higher dictate a command from the 3rd?
I realize we have incomplete info on this, but so too does AE911T, yet they confidently assume only upper floors on fire.

According to local media, there were some uncooperative business owners who re-entered the evacuated building some time after the fire started to collect their valuables. The fire fighters were probably inspecting the lower floors to make sure no one was present at the time of the collapse.

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That would seem to dictate personnel being on the ground floor at entrances, and/or asking police to take that role.

A) It's a controlled Demolition, like the World Trade Center
B) It looks nothing like the World Trade Center collapses

Examples A

Enhanced Footage of the Plasco Building Collapse in Iran shows flashes of light, squibs, explosions. The sequence of detonations even has audible popping sounds like controlled demolitions.

I posted the new raw video of the Plasco building coming down and people thought it was a hoax. They said it was a controlled demolition from somewhere else, but then came back to correct themselves after realizing it was real footage. Check out the cognitive dissonance

I understand the need to be cautious, but those explosives were clearly synchronized. I'm no expert, but seems blatantly obvious

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Examples B

SO what?
It largely fell sideways, as predicted.
Even its "spire" toppled like a tree, as required by the laws of Classical Mechanics.
Its collapse was partial, asymmetrical and gradual, as predicted.
It clearly exhibited jolts, as predicted.

Being that I don't watch the news anymore this is my first time seeing this. It is soooooooo not the same as ANY of the world trade centers. Can't even compare the two...

Except that this was caused purely by fire and was 7 times smaller so had a lot more stability. Not even remotely comparable and given its small size, it went down as expected.

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Reddit is probably tending towards B (the "so what?" response). AE911 on the other hand is stuck with their "these things are signs of controlled demolition".

I'm quite hopeful that this will be the perspective that a lot of people need to finally realized that actually buildings can progressively and rapidly collapse due to fire. Of course the "true believers" generally will try to rationalize it, but there's plenty of people more on the fence.

Almost the entire AE911 case (and the Truther narrative in general) is built on an argument from incredulity. The collapse of the WTC towers looked weird. It seemed that it came down "too fast", "through the path of least resistance", and the official explanation "violated Newton's laws of motion".

It also bears repeating that just because a fire has gone out doesn't mean that the danger is over. A steel beam that has heat-expanded, warped and sagged will NOT go back to its "factory-issue" shape. There's a good chance that when it shrinks as it cools it will rip free from its connections, resulting in collapse.

I'm quite hopeful that this will be the perspective that a lot of people need to finally realized that actually buildings can progressively and rapidly collapse due to fire. Of course the "true believers" generally will try to rationalize it, but there's plenty of people more on the fence.

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Expect to see Niels Harrit give an interview on pressTV.ir explaining how he found iron microspheres and primer pai... military grade nanothermate... in Plasco Building dust, together with a report on how the building was built by a jewish plastics manufacturer who was wisely executed for zionism in 1979 and how 1/19 is 911 backwards.

Of course you can discuss it. AE911 are discussing it. You are discussing it. I think people should discuss it. It's going to help people understand the cause of the expulsions/ejections in the WTC1/2 collapse. So discussion is encouraged.

AE911 is really in a bind here. They pretty much have to claim this looks like a controlled demolition. It clearly isn't, but it remains to be seen if their supporters will all follow them down that road/

1) What is your source for the dust? 2) The suddenness is explosive, compressed air does not have this sudden signature, air compresses. And, 3) the distance from the burning floors to the explosive events. What is most certainly the signature of this as controlled demolition are the 4) same goofy arguments of plausible denial developed over many years
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That is quite an exaggeration and obviously not true. Also, we have previously noted here (though perhaps not cataloged) many dramatic events involving strong impacts, such as car or train crashes, etc, which leave people describing them as sounding like "explosions" when no actual explosives were present.

Perhaps I should have qualified it with everyone who commented. Listen to the several various TV reporters, and we have the recording of explosions, the FDNY written statement a couple month later. We will have testimony of explosion in the Plasco Buildings Demo, that will be discounted in the same way. Notice the pattern? Incidentally, my sister and niece were at E. 54th and heard explosions during the afternoon of 9/11. Could have been a wreck in Brooklyn, cans of hair spray, fire extinguishers, gas tanks, and lots of other stuff, in fact, everything is suggested except what we are watching - a pattern.

Even if they got the year wrong due to failure to adjust to the new year, why comment the very next day?

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They were very quick off the mark. I think they feel that they need to convince people as quickly as possible that the Placo collapse is a controlled demolition, as otherwise it takes away a lot of their "evidence"

[Of course the collapse was man made, look at the explosion on each floor. Wonder what the building was used for and what information they might have wanted to destroy, i.e. WTC 7.

Easy to see it was planned demolition.

Visual and Audio proof, no dought it was demolition!

Controlled demolition for sure! No doubt!

I have no doubt that explosives were used. You see the same plumes of smoke coming out of the windows and lower floors.

Exactly explosions before collapse!

Looks like they blew it to me

It's obvious this was a controlled demolition, even to a kid, we all know what explosions look like. What was in that building?

Like they said. Notice the black oxygen starved smoke.

You can see the timed explosions on the lower floors as the building was collapsing. Demo'd...just like the WTC.

Explosions in every floor... absolutely demolished. Too evident.

Are unrealistic collapses going to be a thing now?

there is zero doubt the building was blown up on purpose

Obviously it was explosions. Watch any controlled detonation, it's the same

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A few voices of reason:

Y'all should be careful with this until you know, remember you are dealing with third world construction!

It was likely built from reinforced concrete, typical for small high-rises in the 1960s. If so, this is a story A&E shouldn't necessarily engage with. It confuses the issue about steel-framed buildings. If residues are found, then there might be something to discuss.

Hundreds of firefighters from multiple stations fought the fire because it was so severe and important to our history, but still with all this you choose to talk about controlled demolitions?

If explosives were used, the sound of them would be overwhelming at that distance. Ear drums would likely be damaged.

This event is irrelevant. AE 911 Truth should stick to it's prime mission, which is the disclosing the events that occurred in the US. Those events shaped US policy thereafter, and are significant for that reason. Citing and taking a position on this collapse in Iran dilutes and detracts from that mission.

I wonder why they don't just raise money to contribute to the investigation. Maybe they could get someone in there to see if there are signs of foul play, instead of just drumming up propaganda to get other people to pay for their "demands". Get someone in there to test samples for Thermite, or whatever. Although, I would hope that it would be under some sort of non-biased supervision. That way the findings wouldn't get skewed in their direction. I am assuming that they will naturally be skewed in the direction of reality and find out that it was a fire induced collapse.

I personally do not see any sign of controlled demolition. There is no sign of the shock wave on the surrounding area and expulsions/ejections looks quite normal. Dust and debris coming out from the windows do not have neither speed nor outreach as it would have in case of explosion although looks spectacular.

Sorry to be pedantic, again, but demolitions take a long time to put in place, and most of the materials required have massive labels on them with words like "Flammable" and "No Smoking" etc, as well as the standard 'keep out the reach of children'.

The explosive charges themselves would combust, the detonation cords would burn, the miles of firing cable would melt and snap, the connections are generally made of a polymer or simple tape, would again burn. The copper in the linear cutting charges would also at least change shape.

Wau. They explicite admits that the steel was melted down. I guess only thermite could explain that.

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Why thermite? how do you think you forge steel in the first place? You need a lot of heat, you get heat from hot fires, like say from a big burning building full of fuel and accelerants? (remember a lot of this building was being used for industrial processes)

Mankind has been melting iron and steel since 1200 BC (give or take a few years), thermite was discovered in 1893, thats a hell of a long time of molten metals with out thermite being involved.

Why thermite? how do you think you forge steel in the first place? You need a lot of heat, you get heat from hot fires, like say from a big burning building full of fuel and accelerants? (remember a lot of this building was being used for industrial processes)

Mankind has been melting iron and steel since 1200 BC (give or take a few years), thermite was discovered in 1893, thats a hell of a long time of molten metals with out thermite being involved.

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Iron was never melted until the blast furnace was invented. Please don't make up things like that. You don't get temperatures above 1500 degrees celsius from office fires. Thermite could explain it. What else?

In addition to specially designed furnaces, ancient iron production needed to develop complex procedures for the removal of impurities, for regulating the admixture of carbon in combination with hot-working to achieve a useful balance of hardness and strength (steel), and for adding alloys to prevent rust; see Ferrous metallurgy.

The earliest tentative evidence for iron-making is a small number of iron fragments with the appropriate amounts of carbon admixture, found in the Proto-Hittite layers at Kaman-Kalehöyük and dated to 2200 to 2000 BC. Akanuma (2008) concludes that "The combination of carbon dating, archaeological context, and archaeometallurgical examination indicates that it is likely that the use of ironware made of steel had already begun in the third millennium BC in Central Anatolia".[5]

Iron was never melted until the blast furnace was invented. Please don't make up things like that. You don't get temperatures above 1500 degrees celsius from office fires. Thermite could explain it. What else?

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The temperature that is achieved in office fire depends not only on what is burned, but on duration of the fire, amount and density of available fuel, and heat dissipation.

When 17 stories are a rubble on the ground, it's not an office anymore. Long duration of the fire, fuel closer together (in a pile instead of spread over 17 stories upwards), and heat barriers (sand in the ground and cement) will create temperatures much higher than an office fires which is burned out in an hour. Chimney effects (air expanding and rising when it gets heated, sucking in more fresh oxygen rich air below) can create a stead draft.

How does thermite explain a big chunk of heated metal? How much thermite would it take to heat that? How fast would it heat it? How would that be used to make the building collapse the way it did?

In addition to specially designed furnaces, ancient iron production needed to develop complex procedures for the removal of impurities, for regulating the admixture of carbon in combination with hot-working to achieve a useful balance of hardness and strength (steel), and for adding alloys to prevent rust; see Ferrous metallurgy.

The earliest tentative evidence for iron-making is a small number of iron fragments with the appropriate amounts of carbon admixture, found in the Proto-Hittite layers at Kaman-Kalehöyük and dated to 2200 to 2000 BC. Akanuma (2008) concludes that "The combination of carbon dating, archaeological context, and archaeometallurgical examination indicates that it is likely that the use of ironware made of steel had already begun in the third millennium BC in Central Anatolia".[5]

From the molten iron they got from producing iron by carbothermal reduction of iron ore. Iron and steel can be softend at temperatures lower than 1500 degrees C, but melting it requires 1538 degrees C.